Comments about ‘Readers' forum: Reduced fares for children’

Buses are diesel powered welfare. By reducing the fees that means the taxpayers of the city have to pay more for your ride or businesses that advertise. The fee I doubt covers more than a miniscule cost of the bus system.

While I agree with the problem, I oppose the solution.

Among the lobbyist at almost every level of government we would find the people who profit from building public transportation and the people who profit from the automotive industry. Public transportation would take profits from the people in the automotive and fuel industries.

So in the spirit of fairness to each other the public transportation people are allowed to build the public transportation so long as they charge so much to use it that it wont impact the automotive industry.

The only real solution to this problem is to get business interests out of government and force business to provide the proper level of service to society.

UTA is a business. Every business should know exactly how much it costs to provide their product or service. Every business should know whether charging lower fares for a "child-in-arms" would get full-fare paying parents to ride more often.

There should never be a no-fare zone UNLESS that city taxed its citizens enough to pay for the cost of that "free" service; otherwise, we who are also citizens are paying for others to use a "service" that we can hardly afford to use ourselves.

The same should be true for reduced rates for seniors. Seniors take up just as much room as younger members of society. They weigh the same. The cost to transport them is the same. If they don't pay their full fare, then someone else in society has to pay for them.

When we get over this "redistribution of wealth" mentality, we will have progressed far beyond the "let the rich guy pay for everything" ideology of those who are currently in power.

If you think that certain people should be subsidized, there is nothing wrong with YOU buying a UTA pass for those people yourself - no government force is necessary.